Lynne Kiesling The cost saving-focused mindset has prevailed in regulated industries for over a century, slowing innovation in the process. In electricity, regulation that bases firms’ profits on cost recovery erects market barriers by recognizing only a business model that involves providing a specified product (110v power to the home) transported over a monopoly network. …
Michael Giberson The Economist is hosting an online debate on the motion, “This house believes that subsidising renewable energy is a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels.” Matthew Fripp of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University has presented the affirmative case for the motion, Robert Bradley, Jr., of the Institute for …
Is Subsidising Renewable Energy is a Good Way to Wean the World off Fossil Fuels? Read More »
Michael Giberson Discovering that renewable power mandates can be expensive, California-style: “California Approves Solar Contract Despite High Cost“: Ultimately, the commissioners voted for Abengoa’s contract mainly because Abengoa already has spent five years and $70 million to develop Mojave Solar and has gotten all the permits and financing to start construction. They noted that getting …
Michael Giberson Let’s just say when the best example of a success story is a long-term contract signed by a utility and the Cape Wind project, you haven’t exactly resolved concerns about the practicality or cost-effectiveness of the law. From the Boston Herald, “AG: Energy costs rising under Mass. renewables law“: The Green Communities Act, …
Massachusetts Observes That Green Power Mandates May Be Raising Consumer Costs Read More »
Michael Giberson If you believed what politicians say about green energy and jobs, you probably think they fit together like peanut butter and jelly squished between layers of bread. Has there been a renewable power subsidy announcement or ribbon-cutting ceremony where the word “jobs” was not featured in the first two or three sentences uttered …
Wherein the Jobs Jobs Jobs Rhetoric Hampers Solar Power Development Read More »
Michael Giberson Brief notes about other energy stories in the news. Flywheel energy storage company Beacon Power has filed for bankruptcy. News stories have highlighted the point that Beacon was a recipient of federal energy technology loan guarantees, which will give an additional boost to Solyndra critics, but I predict the apparent lack of high-level …
Michael Giberson Laylan Copelin, reporting for the Austin American-Statesman, documents the power system resource issues currently troubling state utility regulators in Texas: “State set to grapple again with question: How to encourage more private-sector power generation?” Texas suffered one rolling blackout last winter and narrowly avoided another this summer. The weather extremes might have exposed …
Michael Giberson We talk a bit about the economics of electric power transmission and wind power here, but there is more to understanding the world than economics. Previously we have noted Virginia Postrel writing on the techno-glamour of, among other things, wind turbines. Now we take note of the Pylon Design Competition and its recently …
The Beautiful Transmission Tower, the Glamorous Wind Turbine Read More »
Michael Giberson Among U.S. water utilities, some are publicly owned and some are privately owned. Same thing for gas utilities and electric utilities. But unlike in the gas and electric power industries, the water business has become predominantly organized by publicly-owned utilities. Scott Masten explores why it was that public utility ownership became dominant among …
Why Did Water Utilities in the U.S. Become Mostly Publicly Owned? Read More »
Michael Giberson Bob Jenks of Oregon’s Citizens’ Utility Board, writing at EnergyPulse, explains “Why Smart Grid Advocates Should Learn About Utility Regulation.” Reading between the lines a bit, the reason smart grid advocates should learn about utility regulation seems to be so that they will understand that their talent, inventiveness, and desire to make the …
The Smart Grid and the Regulatory Barriers Thereto Read More »
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